I confessed. I blindly support SOGIE bill because I don’t want to offend my gay friends who are very vocal in social media campaigning for this.

But after stumbling upon the viral FB post of Norman Lao, I think I need to reconsider my stand on the issue if indeed SOGIE bill is unfair to straight people like you and me.

In a Facebook post that has been making a lot of noise on FB pages that specifically caters to straight people, Lao cited 12 reasons why all straight people should oppose the SOGIE bill.

Lao’s FB post has clearly made a connection with straight people in social media. In fact, Lao’s FB post has been shared almost 15K times, reacted 6,217 times and commented more than 2K times and counting.

12 REASONS WHY WE OPPOSE SOGIEby Norman Sison Lao

WE OPPOSE SOGIE not because we hate LGBTQ+. We do not hate any of them. We do not even oppose SOGIE for direct religious reasons.

Here are the reasons why we oppose it:

1. SOGIE is unfair to STRAIGHT PEOPLE. For example, we will be penalized for “hurting their feelings” with P100,000-500,000 plus 1-6 years imprisonment, while there is no provision of law that LGBTQ+ people will be penalized if they hurt ours.

2. There are provisions in SOGIE that can be used to curtail our exercise of religious freedoms. For example, we cannot speak in public to express what we know is the truth.

3. The Bible, the basis of our faith and practice since the time of Jesus Christ, might be banned because of the provision that all media that “discriminates against” LGBTQ+ will not be allowed for circulation.

4. There is a provision in the SOGIE Bill that will impose LGBTQ+ teaching upon our children since they will be integrated in all educational institutions. This will include sex education from the point of view of homosexuality.

5. The claim that the SOGIE Bill will empower women is CONFUSING since there is no “W-omen” in L.G.B.T.Q.”

6. There is NO NEED for SOGIE. If the LGBTQ+ community needs a CR for themselves, let them file a Bill that addresses that specific issue such as “LGBTQ+ CR Bill” that will require all establishments to build a CR for them.

7. The SOGIE Bill is NOT for Equality, but clearly for Preferential Treatment of members of the LGBTQ+ over the rest of the people. This is quite clear in the recent transgender CR fiasco where the transgender was given more media mileage and government attention compared to the Straight Janitress.

8. The SOGIE Bill does not address discrimination. It actually discriminates against Straight People. We already feel discriminated even when SOGIE is not yet a law.

9. The SOGIE Bill is deceptive. Why remove the “except for marriage” clause in the application for licenses in the Senate version of the Bill?

10. There are substantial provisions in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other existing laws that protect the rights of LGBTQ+ people and the rest of the nation.

11. We cannot be forced to accept as normal and natural what we feel is not. To say that a trans-woman is a REAL WOMAN and expect all of us to accept that as “truth” is an imposition of one’s thinking over the majority of the Filipinos. (Even though this does not appear in the SOGIE Bill the fact is that it was commented by one of the strongest proponents of the SOGIE Bill.)

12. We are apprehensive what a SOGIE LAW will do to our nation. One advocate of the SOGIE Bill said that “gender must not be assigned at birth” which, for us, is a revelation of what is at the heart of the SOGIE Bill: the imposition of the LGBTQ+ will on the MAJORITY of the Filipino people.